Clarkson Nourishes Homeschool Moms & Champions Children

If there's one thing I can tell you about Sally Clarkson after
soaking up two seminars, several books, and an hour's phone conversation,
it's that she is nourishing. There's just something about having
spent time with her - even sitting on the floor in a crowded room
- that made me feel two things: I'd had a booster shot of encouragement,
and I'd spent time in the company of Jesus.

Now, nourishing may not be a very glamorous or sophisticated way
to describe this woman, but nourishing she is. One Montgomery, Texas
homeschool mom-of-three goes farther, calling Clarkson "a pastor
for homeschool mothers". Listening and watching the audience
during her Conroe workshops, I can tell you that homeschool moms
cried and laughed. Many expressed relief - they weren't alone. They
felt connected to her and believed that Clarkson understood them.

Clarkson, 48, mom to four homeschooled-since-birth children, nourishes
in person and in writing, having co-written Educating the WholeHearted
Child in 1994 (updated in 1996) with her husband, Clay. ("He
did most of the work but I get most of the credit.") She also
is widely known for her message series on the same topic, which
is enhanced by her 1998 offering, Seasons of a Mother's Heart.
This year (2001) they also reprinted two wonderful, old books The
Gold Thread and other stories of young faith and Just David
(see EHO
reviews of these Clarkson publications). The Clarksons direct
Wholehearted Ministries from their new home in Monument, Colorado
- where Sally was just back from a walk in the mountains on a 58-degree
morning when we spoke weeks after the conference by phone. (Add
30-degrees for where I was that morning!)

Clarkson is not, by her own admission, a perfect woman nor a perfect
mother, but she offers a rock-like (or is that Rock-like) perspective
on what homeschool moms are supposed to be about.

"Clay and I decided to homeschool before we ever got pregnant,"
she said. "Our whole background was discipleship and I was
motivated by Jesus' relationship with His disciples. That's what
I had done and I studied His life of leadership."

The Clarksons met in staff training for Campus Crusade for Christ,
whose staff Sally joined upon graduation from Texas Tech University,
where she earned her degrees in English and Speech. During her six
years on staff, she served on a college campus, pioneered ministries
in Eastern Europe, and ministered to executive women and single
adults in Denver, where Clay just happened to be attending seminary.
Sally told her Conroe, Texas -standing-room-only crowd at an August,
2001 homeschool conference that Clay had been supporting her ministry
when she was overseas and he said he might as well continue. They
married in 1981.

Sally and Clay came into homeschooling from a unique angle.

"We married when we were older and we said if we have children,
that's what we want to do," she shared. "It wasn't about
curriculum. It was about discipleship. It was all about teaching
our children to have a heart for God."

Perhaps, she quipped in the workshop, if she had met some homeschoolers
before starting the task herself, she might have decided differently.
But the Clarksons held to their convictions about why they would
homeschool, and echo that in Educating the WholeHearted Child: "As
their parents, we are raising our children for God's approval."

Flying in the face of culture that tells mothers not to waste their
time on baby sitting, but to go out and have a career so they can
be fulfilled, Sally Clarkson has real-life encouragement.

"I really think the culture doesn't support traditional motherhood
anymore and many of the moms feel alone, overwhelmed, and insecure,"
she began. "We have a sinful nature and sinful children, and
it takes a long time to see results. And then Satan says, 'You're
not good enough. You can't do this."

According to Sally, her family is part of a "first generation"
of families trying to recapture what God wants them to do."

For me, it's been a very difficult and lonely road with times of
loneliness and depression," she admitted. "I'm trying
to minister to (other mothers) what I wished I had had. Being a
wholehearted mother is such a vital and important task that will
impact eternity, but there's no support saying to you, 'Your kids
are fine and you're doing great.' Our culture worships SATs and
there's no importance given to children being able to think or be
kind."

Many women need additional support, Sally said, particularly single
moms, those in difficult marriages, or with difficult children,
but there are few support groups to help bear that burden.

"I think one of the problems is that moms already feel strung
out. Not very many moms feels like they have anything left to start
a group or reach out to other people," she went on, sharing
her heart. "I had to know that at the absolute bottom, at the
furtherest point underneath my heart that I've committed everything
to the Lord and I want what He wants. Now, that will sustain a mom.
If everything is not laid at the altar, then she won't have the
strength that she needs."

Many times, Sally said, moms look for the right thing in the wrong
place.

"More friends, bigger house, better support - those are good
things but not the ultimate answer," she cautions. "We're
looking to culture, church, and activities, but I acquired my security,
my affirmation, my peace at the very bottom of my heart where the
Lord was. Yes, we need to encourage each other, but the first thing
is linking to the Lord. He encourages my spirit ... The whole reason
I wrote Seasons of a Mother's Heart is that there is great
value in moms getting together, focusing on issues of their heart
and having time to be together and discuss and encourage each other.
That's when we realize we're not so unusual."

Sally also says to find tapes or books or people that encourage
you to be more like Jesus.

"I don't want to put a pile on anyone," she said, adding
how that "pile" often leads to condemnation. "This
is not a 'do these ten things and you'll know God' kind of thing.
There were seasons in my life when I couldn't even have a quiet
time, but I knew He was there. I was not alone."

"There are times to think big thoughts and then there are
times when you don't even know you've had a thought. You just know
you've made it through the day," she said in a knowing way.

Having herself been through the various stages, Sally can speak
with authority on toddlers and their mess, on elementary-age children
and how you never thought you could teach a child to read, but you
did. She knows about when those hormones kick in, and then as your
children enter their young adult years and begin to own their own
views. (I cried in Seasons of a Mother's Heart when she wrote
about her 17-year-old Sarah, now reaching into those young adult
years and about the preciousness of that last bit of time together.)

And Sally realizes there is a connection between herself and the
untold number of homeschool mothers who read her writings and attend
her workshops. I watched them line up, speaking in hushed tones
about her, saying how she had said just what they had been feeling.
They entreated her for wisdom in individual situations, not hesitating
to give personal details. Theirs is a unique fastening, one heart
to another.

"I really think there is a kindred spirit when someone can
articulate what you think," Sally said, deflecting any praise.
"The Holy Spirit does that."

In her August workshops, Sally said she had opinions on curriculum
but wasn't harping on one or another. Her intent was to get to the
heart.

"We have homeschooled from the beginning but, of course, there
were many years where I probably idealized what homeschooling would
be like and then I had to move into the reality," she said.
"But I feel like my vision has grown more each year and my
understanding of what God wants me to do has grown. I tend to be
more philosophical than practical, and I had far more ideals than
what I could accomplish ... I was visionary from the beginning,
but I still had to deal with sinful children and messes."

Sally did share a couple of tips for moms that she hoped would
not become part of a burdensome pile of things to accomplish.

"Hebrews said not to forsake the assembling. There were times
when all I had was the Lord, but when you can be with other moms,
there's such a strength there and an encouragement, and then I think
moms and children just need to have fun. Too many sinful children
in the house too many days in a row makes too much stress. Pack
a picnic, go to the park, get out. It's important to have fun time
and not all just work and duty."

Her workshop allowed me to go home and look myself in the mirror
and, not only repeat, but believe: "My children need me. I'll
be enough."

Sally also admonished everyone to remember Who's in control.

"It's easier for me to relinquish control to the Lord now,"
she said thoughtfully. "When I was young, I had the illusion
I was in control and I had to learn I was not. Now, it's easier
to go back to Him because I've become accustomed to continually
going back to him. I go back to my goals; I go back to Him - and
I see the fruit."

And that fruit - in mom and in children - makes the journey easier.

"I really like them a lot," Sally said of her children,
Sarah, Nathan, Joel, and newest Clarkson model, Joy. "They
are my best friends. They're so interesting and fun and thinking.
It's taken years of walking in darkness, through immaturity and
messes, and through different seasons. We're seeing fruit."

Sally said your children's foundation is important, as is guarding
what is built on that foundation.

"Your soul has to have something to give or you won't have
something to give," she said. "I'm careful with guarding
my children, singing to them and praying with them before bed, doing
devotionals, doing chores and teaching them to be diligent with
chores, nurturing their relationship with me and thus nurture their
relationship with the God I serve. Those are my children's appetites
now. What we started with is what they love now."

Clarkson admonished Conroe conference attendees to consider their
task from God's point of view.

Clarkson said she imagines God asking, "What did you do to
have an impact on your children, to impact them for eternity?"
She continues, "I want to build God's messages into my children,
to love and touch and affirm them, cooperate with God's principles,
disciple them. Children are born for a purpose and no one cares
more about my children than I do ... The strength of my homeschool
depends on the strength of my relationship with God. I want to look
at my children with their potential in mind ... They are created
in God's image and will live up to their potential within them."

I really liked her comment about having a potential George Washington
or a little Florence Nightingale in my home, a miniature Paul or
Moses. I want to remember, as she directed, that I'm raising them
for a purpose.

That doesn't happen by accident. She cautions homeschoolers to
clarify their goals, and stay true to their own convictions, not
everyone else's convictions.

And, did the mothers' pastor dream of such a life as wife and mother
and minister when she was a little girl?

"I really didn't," Sally said, chuckling. "I loved
my mom and I look back now and see how she really laid a foundation,
but I was a single, young woman out traveling the world and I thought,
'I sure hope I get married someday,' and then we were married and
I had never been around babies. I had never really thought much
about it. I look back now (at her own mother) and I see that I had
someone who loved me and nurtured me. I never thought this is what
my life's message would be, but it was all part of God's plan and
He led me."

Sally grew up in a home committed to the Lord, she said, but hit
college and found she just wanted life to make sense.

"I was surrounded by the drug and sexual revolution culture
and was searching for meaning in my life. I was thrown into that
culture by the fact of being in a normal college dorm. However,
I was a pretty conservative girl looking for footholds of morality
and purpose when someone shared Christ with me. I became a believer
in college and that was the answer to my deepest needs: to be loved
unconditionally and to have a purpose. A week later someone challenged
me to teach a Bible study, and to make a difference," she shared.

"I found out years later that my parents prayed that one of
their children would go into full time Christian work, but they
assumed it would be one of their sons," she said. "This
is a specific path that God has called me to walk to minister to
moms. There's no one fighting for their rights and needs and deepest
desires. And, I want to champion children."

You may obtain WholeHeart Ministries products from homeschool suppliers,
some bookstores, and by visiting the Clarksons' website at www.wholeheart.org.
Read our reviews of WholeHeart Ministries products.

Whole
Hearted Mother Conferences
Visit the WholeHeart Ministries website to learn more about these
conferences designed to encourage you as a Christian parent, and
to equip you to raise wholehearted children for God.